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In order to paint, you must first learn how to draw. There is a ton of misinformation on the internet and in literature, especially the famous book - "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook" [1]. This is a completely wrong way to learn how to draw. It gets you to point where your results may look pleasing but your foundation is going to be weak and it will fall apart.

Let me explain.

In order to draw convincingly, you must first internalize the object in 3 dimensions. You have to learn how to "think" in 3D - more specifically, given an object, you must be able to draw it from any angle, with or without foreshortening, and with any arrangement of illumination and with any camera focal length. Start with simple shapes - they're boring but that is a __must__. Then, start stacking primitives such as cones, cubes, cylinders, etc. Draw 20 different views of the same setup of primitives. Do this everyday for 6 months and you will pickup how to think in "3D" so to speak.

If you follow [1], you won't be able to do this. You will be able to copy a photograph or illustration by recognizing shapes but that only goes so far. If someone asks you to draw the same thing from a slightly different camera angle, you're lost.

Learning how to paint then adds another layer about color harmony, texture and stroke style. But fundamental drawing skills are __critical__ in order to paint well. All bets are off if you're trying to do abstract art or non-representational art.

You can take Jeffrey Watt's classes or a full course [2] or follow a few channels such as Sycra [3] on Youtube.

[1] https://smile.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Workbook/d...
[2] http://jeffreyrwatts.com/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/user/Sycra

This is a pretty strong opinion, and not necessarily correct.

>"Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook" [1]. This is a completely wrong way to learn how to draw

Do you have a source for this? This book has been recommended by a good majority of the drawing/painting professors I had (at a fine arts school). The entire basis of the book is "learn to draw by learning to see".

>Do this everyday for 6 months and you will pickup how to think in "3D" so to speak.

This isn't bad advice, but not doesn't correlate directly with learning to draw/paint from observation. This is a helpful exercise if you are looking to go more of an illustrative/modeling route. If OP is looking to draw from imagination completely, this would be helpful - but I would still argue that practicing from observation would build a better visual vocabulary than practicing basic shapes only.

>But fundamental drawing skills are __critical__ in order to paint well.

true

>All bets are off if you're trying to do abstract art or non-representational art.

Demonstrably false. Every single one of the abstract/non-representational masters have an extremely good grasp of "traditional" (i.e. observational) skills. Even Pollock knew how to draw from life.

To OP - I would recommend starting by drawing AND painting from life at the same time. There's no real reason to master drawing before attempting to paint, as painting is essentially drawing with color. That being said, drawing is a great way to force you do as much as you can with a very limited tool box (line, shape, texture, value, space (composition)).

Also - don't take anyone's advice as an absolute. There are thousands and thousands of ways to progress as an artist and not a single one of them is "correct". The only constant is to be persistent and self-critical.